Irish Charity Regulator research reports £350 million in household donations

Howard Lake | 15 August 2018 | News

Research commissioned by the Irish Charity Regulator reports that £350 million came from household charitable donations in 2017.

Reported donations to larger charities amounted to €389 million when donations from corporations and other sources are included. Overall income of charities registered with the Regulator was €14.5 billion and could be as high as €16 billion if account is taken of charitable organisations who did not report their financial data.

Organisations who reported income of over €10 million accounted for the majority of the income of registered charities. Over half of registered charities examined had income of less than €250,000 and the majority of this group had income of less than €50,000. In tandem with this, the research provides evidence that a significant number of these charities have no employees and exist because of the participation of volunteers.

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Households with retired persons had the highest average weekly expenditure on charitable donations (€7.08). They had the highest estimated value of donations (€131.14 million), with households with employees having the second highest (€129.79 million).

Public funding

Public funding for charitable organisations which in Ireland includes large institutions such as hospitals and universities, is by far the biggest source of income and shows that public funding of €7.69 billion was provided to the registered charities. Of the reported income, income from philanthropy and donations made up 7% of the total.

Indecon was appointed by the Charities Regulatory Authority to complete independent research into the Register of Irish Charities with a particular emphasis on the economic and social impact of regulated charities. The full report is available on the Regulator’s website.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.